The Rashtrakutas and their Times c9.s2.24

c9.s2.24

Dhruva died some time between April 793 and May 794 A.D. ²⁷ He was one of the ablest of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa rulers. During a short reign of about 13 years he not only reestablished the Rāṣṭrakūṭa ascendency in the south, which was seriously endangered by his predecessor's loose and vicious government, but made the Rāṣṭrakūṭas an *all-India* power. For the first time after the Andhra occupation of portions of Northern India, after a lapse of nearly nine centuries, a Deccanese force crossed the Vindhyas and entered into the very heart of *Madhyades'a*, defeating each of the two rival claimants for the imperial position in the North. His deposition of his elder brother is an unfortunate circumstance casting reflections upon his moral character; but if Govinda was really a weak and vicious ruler, which certainly seems to have been the case, there was more than ample political justification for the step taken by Dhruva. His northern campaigns no doubt did not result in the enlargement of the Empire in that direction, but in the south, after the imprisonment of the Ganga ruler, his dominions were annexed ²⁸ and the boundary of the Empire was pushed to the Kāverī.